Gift certificates that general consumers have widely used are bearer securities with fixed amounts of money that can be exchanged with goods. The gift certificates have an advantage in that users of the gift certificates can purchase, at some appropriate time, a variety of goods dealt by gift certificate issuing stores to their tastes within the ranges of amounts printed on the gift certificates. Further, unrealized amounts of the gift certificates obtained through issuance of the gift certificates play a role as interest-free borrowings from the viewpoint of the gift certificate issuing stores, thereby favorably contributing to management of the gift certificate issuing stores and greatly contributing to rise of the prestige and rise of credit rating of the gift certificate issuing stores as well. Due to a variety of such advantages provided to both the gift certificate users and the gift certificate issuing stores, gift certificates are being issued and distributed by many enterprises in various fields such as department stores, bookstores and confectionery stores. As purchasable items get increased, the gift certificates are being widely given and taken as gifts among general consumers. As a result, a gift certificate market has grown rapidly in recent years.
However, in spite of such advantages, the conventional gift certificates have many problems resulting from attributes of the gift certificates.
That is, since the use of the conventional gift certificates is inevitably restricted only to gift certificate issuing stores and some affiliated stores, their distribution ranges are inevitably limited. Further, as most of the gift certificates are mainly purchased by cash, there is a problem in that purchase of the gift certificates through credit card transactions is limited in practice. In addition, there are problems in that it is impossible to identify, use particulars thereof since the gift certificates can be used by bearers, and that amounts of money used for purchasing goods using the gift certificates cannot be properties for benefit of deductions and exemptions.
In view of transactions in the gift certificates, the gift certificates have many problems. Since the transactions in the gift certificates necessarily always involve spot transactions, it is impossible to make on-line transactions and to expand transaction methods. Moreover, illegal distribution of the gift certificates through so called ‘card kkang,’ which is a kind of illegal card discount, has caused undesirable results opposing a tax policy of the government for intending to secure a variety of tax sources and to regulate hidden revenue.
Further, since the conventional gift certificates have predetermined limit amounts of money, if the gift certificate users intend to purchase goods beyond the predetermined limit amounts of the gift certificates, the users cannot avoid inconvenience of additionally paying exceeded amounts of money in cash or with credit cards in addition to the gift certificates, which is considered as ‘duality in payment means.’ Moreover, there is inconvenience of refunding the remaining amounts after purchasing goods below the limit amounts of the gift certificates, and there is also a problem in that disputes between the gift certificate issuing stores and the users frequently arise due to cash refund requests.
Recently, with a government's policy of promoting the use of credit cards, purchase of goods and services using credit cards has been prevailed among general consumers due to many advantages of credit card transactions.
Accordingly, attempts to develop new gift certificates using credit cards are continuously being made by the credit card industry in order to solve the aforementioned problems with the conventional gift certificate system and in order to promote credit card transactions. Korean Patent Application No. 2000-67106 discloses “Method of operating card gift certificate based on credit card system,” wherein a gift certificate is manufactured in the form of a credit card according to order information provided by a credit card member and a third person who has received the card gift certificate manufactured in this manner freely purchases goods or services at member stores affiliated with a relevant credit card company within an issued amount of money in the card gift certificate. However, since the method of operating the card gift certificate disclosed in the above patent application requires issuance of an additional card besides the credit card, it inevitably causes resistance of rejecting the use of the card gift certificate by some member stores affiliated with the credit card company. Furthermore, the method still has a disadvantage in that use particulars of the card gift certificate are difficult to identify since any bearer thereof can use the card gift certificate, and that benefit of deductions and exemptions cannot be obtained. In addition, there is a problem in that it is still impossible to avoid the duality in payment means in which a purchasing amount exceeding a predetermined limit amount of the gift certificate should be paid by using another payment means except the card gift certificate.